About mid-way through the novel, Leaphorn visits a Navajo clan during a Kinaalda-a sacred coming of age ceremony for a Navajo woman. Firstly, there's the empathetic descriptions of Navajo culture and traditions (especially when contrasted/dramatized against the background of 'White' culture). In the end, though, two things about this novel stuck out to me. On the flip-side, the plot was, from the get-go, unnecessarily complicated-involving three separate cold-cases that come together to form one master crime scenario, the ending (though exciting) drug out far too long, and descriptions of action (dynamite exploding and killing people, notably) was rendered in such a way to make it unclear to the reader where people were and what exactly was going on.

Listening Woman had a number of things to recommend it-good characterization, evocative descriptions of the harsh and beautiful landscape of the Navajo Reservation where the book takes place, and snappy pacing. This combined leads me to believe that I had a rather organic introduction to the Leaphorn series.

It's also not one of the more high profile (read: multi-awarded, movie-versioned) novels. Jim Chee is introduced relatively early on in the series. A little further research and I now know that this is one of the few Hillerman mysteries featuring just Joe Leaphorn his counterpart (and subordinate) Sgt. This ended up being a good introduction, I think, even if it was pretty arbitrary. I started with Listening Woman because I was able to buy it for a dollar. (I was told by an enthusiastic library volunteer in Oro Valley, AZ that I should just start at the beginning and work my way through, but that seemed a little more time consuming than I was ultimately prepared for.) In the end, a discount book rack in Portland, Maine made my decision for me. The problem was I didn't really know where to start. When he died earlier this year, I decided to make like a good Southwesterner and rectify this omission in my reading list. Had it not been for some unfortunate connotations that I had with Hillerman (he was the author of choice for a particularly Wicked Stepmother), I would have most likely read his whole oeuvre by now.

Hillerman listening woman